from the up-is-down,-black-is-white,-you-said-what-now? dept

There isn't a huge surprise in the news that France has once again passed a law to force ISPs to kick accused (not convicted) file sharers off the internet under a draconian "three strikes" system. We all knew this was coming. After the original French three strikes law was gutted as being totally unconstitutional, French President Nicolas Sarkozy (who apparently doesn't believe any such law should apply to him, given his history of mass piracy) insisted that such a law was necessary to defend freedom. Yes, really. And, even as France's cultural minister was planning to get multiple internet connections just in case he got cut off -- while also wishing that his own creative content were "pirated" more often, the French gov't went back to work on putting in place such a law. The big "change" this time was to give judges 5 whole minutes to rule on file sharers, so that they could say a judge oversaw the case, rather than it just being a random accusation. I'm not sure how due process works with a 5 minute limit... but what can you do.

What's much more entertaining is seeing how entertainment industry lobbyists are cheering this on. I'm beginning to think that they actually believe that kicking people off the internet will make people buy more of their content. Incredible. First up, the MPAA's Dan Glickman (who's being pushed out of his job for being woefully ineffective):

"Today's decision is an enormous victory for creators everywhere. It is our hope that ISPs will fully honor their promise to cooperate and that the French government will take the necessary measures to dedicate resources to handle the enormous task ahead."

A victory for creators? Really? By kicking fans off the internet for promoting their works? Yikes. Someone's out of touch. Then we have Rick Cotton, of NBC Universal, the man who insisted that movie piracy was really harming the poor American corn farmer since people ate less popcorn with pirated movies:

"The French action recognizes that jobs and economic growth in creative industries are under assault by digital theft. We need a safe and secure Internet that enables consumers to access content easily but does not facilitate illegal file sharing that kills jobs in creative sectors."

Yes, and the corn farmers, too, right? So, if it's really all about jobs, what about the people kicked offline who rely on the internet for their job? Apparently those jobs don't matter? In the meantime, it's already pretty clear from multiple studies that it's not file sharing that's "killing jobs in creative sectors" but the inability of executives like Cotton to understand basic economics and business models.

But, honestly, the most guffaw-inducing response to this comes from Tom Sydnor at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Sydnor, who as you may know, has a long history of making claims that don't pass the laugh test, has really outdone himself this time (it's even better than when he accused a college that couldn't identify accused file sharers of harboring "terrorists, pedophiles, phishing-scheme operators, hackers [and] identity thieves" by giving them a "get out of jail free" card). So what's his take on kicking people off the internet based on accusations? Well, it's really about consumer relief. No, seriously:

"As a consumer, I would far prefer the successive warnings that French law would now provide to the sudden financial devastation of the John-Doe lawsuit that American law would now require. I thus urge American internet-service providers and copyright owners to work together to provide American consumers with similar relief."

Ah, yes, because the only options are to sue everyone or to kick people off the internet? Apparently Tom has such incredibly little faith in the innovation ability of content providers that he assumes that they cannot craft unique and innovative business models that don't involve suing everyone or kicking people off the internet. How insulting of him towards content creators. Every time Sydnor makes a statement like this and PFF promotes it, it just weakens the work that PFF does in other areas. It's tough to take an organization seriously that has someone claiming that kicking people off the internet based on accusations of private companies is "consumer relief."

from the time-to-pull-back-the-attack-dogs dept

It's been interesting to see the aftermath of the Jammie Thomas $1.92 million ruling, as it appears that even the RIAA is recognizing that such an insanely large award gives them something of a black-eye and has the possibility of creating a bit of a backlash. However, apparently they forgot to send out that message to all of their usual attack dogs. In an AP article discussing the ruling and the $1.92 million number with a variety of different people, the RIAA tried to distance itself from the number, specifically stating, "That was not our number, that was what 12 regular folks rendered." Uh, yeah, except that the RIAA has long used the statutory numbers in their arguments about the "risks" of file sharing.

Tom Sydnor, from the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), a loud and proud supporter of stronger copyright at every turn (and who is well funded by the RIAA labels), apparently missed the memo on playing down the number. He told the reporter that it was a perfectly reasonable number.

"Legally acquiring a license to give copies of a song to potentially millions of Kazaa users might well have cost $80,000 per song,"

Except... that's not even close to accurate. The record labels presented no proof that she gave the song to millions of users, and seem to totally ignore the fact that these songs were available from tons of other sources (either legally or illegally) for prices between nothing and $1. To claim that the record labels would literally consider an option to license a single user putting a song into a shared folder at $80,000 is simply ridiculous.

But, of course, it shows the mentality of those paid for by the RIAA. These are the same people who accuse Larry Lessig of being a communist by taking a few statements totally out of context, and then accuse universities of supporting terrorism by not violating students' privacy and handing over their details to the RIAA.

So, if the RIAA is really serious about playing down the size of the jury award, it might want to rein in Sydnor before he says much more. If you're looking for someone to get out a message by appearing as a caricature of the evil record labels, I don't think you could find any organization better than PFF. But, that's probably not what the RIAA needs right now, unless it really wants to give the folks on the fence even more reason to leap over to the side who recognizes just how much the labels have twisted, stretched and abused copyright law over the years, totally at odds with its constitutional prescription of promoting the progress of science. Defending a $1.92 million award to the record labels for 24 songs in a shared folder, with no evidence that a single one was actually shared, is not promoting the progress. It's promoting massive greed and regulatory capture at the expense of society.

from the vote-for-the-latter dept

PC World is running a bit of a linkbait article about "The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America." Nothing on the list is really likely to surprise you. It starts off (of course) with the RIAA and the MPAA. Somehow the BSA gets something of a pass, even though it's nearly as bad. Perhaps because it represents software companies it's not considered "anti-tech." The big telcos amazingly make the list twice (now that's impressive). Actually, AT&T and Verizon sort of make the list three times, if you include their wireless subsidiaries who make the list as well. Then there's big pharma, who makes the list for standing in the way of any kind of useful patent reform. Amusingly, the only "small" organization to make the list is the "think tank" the Progress and Freedom Foundation, with whom we've had our differences.

While the list does comprise the standard list of organizations many techies have learned to hate, it's really sad to think of how this has shaped up. Too many in the industry still like to think of it as being an "us" vs. "them" situation, where if one side loses, the other side wins. But that's not actually the case. In almost every case, each of the companies listed in the article should be pro-technology and should be embracing technology. If they did, they'd discover things wouldn't be as grim as it is right now. Just imagine if the record labels hadn't followed Doug Morris and Edgar Bronfman Jr. to war with its biggest fans, and instead had embraced technology. They could be thriving today like the rest of the music industry, reveling in the biggest burst of new music in history, combined with faster, better, cheaper and more efficient means of promotion and distribution. Instead, the record labels who fought technology are shrinking fast and blaming everyone but their own misguided leadership. The same is true of almost every one on the PC World list. If each simply learned how to embrace technology, they'd discover that they'd actually be in better shape with larger markets and happier customers. Instead, they find themselves fighting with customers and begging for regulatory help to protect old business models. This isn't a situation where they should be "anti-technology." All of these firms should be pro-technology for their own good.